Local artist captures landmarks and landscapes

Growing up in Green Bay, artist Nate Rose has always had an interest in art.
“I was born and raised in Green Bay and went to East High School and studied art there. I guess I was kind of always artistic as a kid, but then I didn’t really do much painting or anything after high school. I had a third-shift bagel-making job at Lox Stock and Bagel after high school, and it was there that I started painting again… I would get done with my bagel-making shift in the early morning hours and I didn’t know what to do with myself, so I started making abstract paintings.”

A move to Oregon strengthened Rose’s passion for art, eventually leading him to pursue a degree in it.

“I got the opportunity to move out to Oregon, so I did,” he said. “And when I lived out in Oregon, I decided to go back to school for art, so I did and I ended up getting a degree in art. And I lived in Oregon for 13 years and moved back to Wisconsin almost three years ago now… It was Oregon that pretty much did it,” he said. “I think when I moved out there, I was just fully amazed by the nature and the mountains and everything… At that point, I had dabbled in painting quite a bit and so I just merged those two interests.”

Rose brought his interest in painting, and especially landscape painting, back to Wisconsin, but this time with a new medium.

“When I moved back to Wisconsin, I was living in Milwaukee and I decided to learn oil painting,” he said. “I had done some Plein Air painting outdoors, painting the mountains in Oregon in acrylic paints, but acrylic doesn’t really lend itself well to that style of painting. When I moved back to Wisconsin I decided to try something new and learn oil paints — it stays wet a lot longer than acrylic paint, so it’s much better for just painting on the spot.”

It was in Milwaukee that Rose started making the tiny landscape paintings that now make up much of his social media content.

“Near the end of my year of living in Milwaukee, I had learned oil paint pretty well and I had seen people make these tiny little paintings using Altoids containers as the pallet,” he said. “I had some Altoid containers, so I got a tiny canvas and I put it in there and I decided to walk down to the Milwaukee Art Museum and I sat down on the grass and made a little painting of the art museum. It turned out pretty well and I liked it, and the response was way more positive than I was expecting so that kind of started this whole mini painting thing.”

Regardless of their size, Rose said his landscape paintings often involve more than just picking a spot and painting — there is a significant amount of preparation that goes into making sure everything is just right before the painting even begins.

“I usually go out and try to do them on the spot,” he said. “Sometimes I’ll do some of the work at home and I also do a lot of planning. I’ll visit a spot, take some pictures so I know where the sun is and know what the weather is like and then I’ll wait until the proper conditions — until I feel like the time is right — and I’ll return to the spot and make the painting.”

When it comes to determining the subject of his landscape paintings, Rose said he looks for locations that fit two main criteria.

“I’m always looking for something that’s kind of visually interesting,” he said. “And I tend to go for landmarks that a lot of people can relate to or things that have a lot of nostalgic value.”

Recently, Rose has started to paint nostalgic landmarks that are no longer a part of the local landscape — places like Port Plaza Mall, the Exclusive Company.

“I had been making these little paintings around Green Bay of stuff that’s there — the Dino Stop, the Neville Museum’s Mastodon, stuff like that,” he said. “And then one day I was thinking to myself, ‘I wish I could paint Port Plaza Mall.’ I went to East High School, so I used to go to Port Plaza Mall all the time, but it’s not there at all. It’s totally demolished. And then I was like, ‘Well, why not do it anyways?’ So I did a bunch of research to try to find out what it looked like and that kind of started this whole memory series.”

Although some of his pieces are available for sale on his Etsy page, creating art is not Rose’s full-time job — and he intends to keep it that way.

“I kind of like that it’s not a job,” he said. “I keep painting as a hobby and something that I like to do, and I feel like that comes through in my work. I’m actually making something that I want to paint. I don’t really like feeling like it’s something that I have to do in a job and meet deadlines and things like that, so it’s kind of nice that it’s not my day job. I also like that I’m not pigeonholed into one specific style. A lot of professional artists have to really stick to one thing and have a cohesive body of work so people know what to expect from them… I like that I can do whatever I want — sometimes I’m in the mood to make landscapes and go out and paint, sometimes I’m in the mood to make abstract paintings, which I still do from time to time and sometimes I’m in the mood to do some random pop culture things.”

See more of Rose’s work at nate-rose.com or on Instagram @naterosetotheoccasion.